ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

India trashes US's charge

The Indian government today questioned the Clinton administration for accusing New Delhi of a ''campaign of duplicity'', stating that India has not violated any international law by conducting a series of nuclear tests.

Pramod Mahajan, the prime minister's political adviser, asked newspersons in New Delhi why a foreign country should be taken into confidence about ''our nuclear programme,'' which, he said, was not for ''academic'' purposes.

Replying to questions on US criticism, Mahajan said there was nuclear apartheid prevalent in the world. If the security perceptions of nuclear weapon countries -- the US, Britain, France, Russia and China -- required nuclear options, why is India denied this right, he asked.

''We are for a nuclear-free world,'' he said, and added that India has all along advocated the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but which should be non-discriminatory in nature.

Mahajan said India had not committed any crime by conducting nuclear tests. This was necessary in view of security environment in the region. He said the world cannot be divided between haves and have-nots.

He said, ''Even if we had conveyed to the US our threat perception, does that mean the Clinton administration would have given us the go-ahead for conducting nuclear tests?''

Meanwhile, United States ambassador to India Richard Celeste was not recalled to Washington after the nuclear tests by India, as has been made out by the media, official sources said in New Delhi today.

Celeste was holidaying in Honolulu when the nuclear tests took place in India and was called to Washington, the sources said.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report